Abstract
The focus of this project is to discover how graphic novels can provide opportunities for meaningful reading and writing. Multimodal texts, like graphic novels, can engage students in a significant experience, an experience that they can bring forth in their college-level reading and writing practices. In the fall semester of 2016, I conducted a case study at a mid-sized western university in two First Year Composition (FYC) courses that explored the impact of graphic novels on students’ literacy practices. Three significant findings emerged from the data: 1) students attributed traditional alphabetic text as meeting academic standards and non-traditional graphic novels contradicted their prior knowledge of what is appropriate for the classroom; 2) students used the analogy of speaking another language and juxtaposed it to the ability to translate words into images; and 3) despite knowing that artistic ability was not included in the assessment process, students privileged known genre conventions over classroom practices.